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Stockman

Stockman Project

The Stockman Project is located in north-eastern Victoria, 12km to the east of the township of Benambra.  The Project encompasses the Currawong and Wilga copper-zinc-lead-silver-gold rich massive sulphide deposits which have been the focus of recent exploration and the ongoing mine scoping study.
The Currawong deposit comprises a series of stacked massive sulphide lenses, with associated stringer style mineralisation, that are separated by a series of post-mineralisation faults. The ore lenses are interpreted to have originally comprised two ore lenses prior to fault disruption. The Wilga deposit, located 3.5km to the south west of Currawong, comprises a single massive sulphide lens and associated stringer mineralisation.
Both ore deposits are hosted within the same stratigraphic units, are located only 90m below the surface, and have dip and strike extents of approximately 300m. A program of diamond drilling, commenced during the last reporting period, was completed in the second half of 2008 with the principal aim of confirming the veracity of historical data prior to progressing to revised resource estimates on the Currawong and Wilga deposits.
 Jabiru undertook a revised resource estimate for the Wilga and Currawong deposits after a detailed review of both historic and recent data and an update of the geological model. The revised estimate for the Currawong deposit is comparable to the previously reported Inferred resource. The revised estimate for Wilga differs from the previously reported Inferred resource with lower overall copper (-30%) and zinc grades (-20%). This is due to a series of factors, the most significant of which are:                                                                                              
  • the more realistic geological boundaries placed on the different ore types;
  • the inclusion of lower grade stringer mineralisation into a resource for the first time;
  • the removal of underground face sampling from the assay dataset; and
  • the quarantining of several areas of high grade mineralisation adjacent to known workings that are considered possibly to have been removed during the latter stages of historic mining operations. 

Processing of data acquired during an airborne electromagnetic (VTEM) and magnetic survey undertaken early in 2008 was completed and a series of conductors have been identified in addition to strong responses over the Wilga and Currawong massive sulphide deposits. The newly identified conductors are located close to Wilga and Currawong within the same host rock package, and are considered high priority drill targets.

Exploration for the coming year is planned to focus primarily on the diamond drill testing of the newly defined EM targets close to the Wilga and Currawong deposits. Additional work will also be focused on the delineation of additional base metal targets through a number of avenues; namely review of the large historical dataset held by Jabiru; implementation of modern surface geochemical techniques across host stratigraphy that lacks an obvious geophysical response; and construction of a detailed stratigraphical-structural model that could identify prospective stratigraphy under shallow cover, close to known deposits.